US President Donald Trump. (AFP/Yonhap)
“Don’t shoot us!”
At 1 pm on Saturday, 100 or so People gathered at Lafayette Sq., simply north of the White Home, regardless of the falling rain.
One protestor carrying a poncho held a poster that stated, “Get up America.” One other poster posed a rhetorical query to brokers of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE): “How does it really feel to shoot younger moms?”
The protests have been held in condemnation of the deadly taking pictures of Renee Nicole Good, aged 37, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Wednesday.
“Once I first noticed the video from Minneapolis, I used to be shocked however not stunned. These persons are educated to be OK with actions of this type. It seems like being caught in a nightmare that by no means ends. We’re asking for issues to get higher,” stated one protestor who spoke with the Hankyoreh.
“This is similar factor that occurred with George Floyd. It’s a crimson line for us,” one speaker on the protest stated.
Over a thousand memorials and “ICE Out for Good” demonstrations have been held across the US on the primary weekend after the deadly taking pictures in Minneapolis and a subsequent taking pictures by border patrol brokers in Portland, Oregon.
Protesters maintain up an indication in Lafayette Sq. exterior the White Home in Washington, DC, at a rally on Jan. 10, 2026, protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after one in all its brokers shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. (Kim Gained-chul/Hankyoreh)
The taking pictures is seen as symbolizing the primary yr of Trump’s second time period, through which the US president has sought to maneuver the nation in a basically totally different route by taking decisive motion in a variety of areas — adopting a harsh immigration coverage, slashing federal spending, halting variety packages, elevating tariffs, combatting drug smugglers, and attacking Venezuela, together with persevering with efforts to finish conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
Throughout that yr, Trump has revamped 5,500 posts to social media and signed 227 govt orders — six greater than he signed throughout his complete first time period — with main penalties for the lives of peculiar People.
To mark the primary anniversary of Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, the Hankyoreh heard from People who have been straight impacted by Trump’s insurance policies in 2025.
A toy vendor laments a misplaced yr
“You simply couldn’t make any plans in 2025,” remarked Abigail Adelsheim-Marshall, the co-owner of Mischief, a toy retailer she has run along with her dad and mom in Saint Paul, Minnesota, since 2015.
Round 90% of the shop’s toys are imported from China. She want to purchase extra American-made toys, however that’s a tall order.
“Over the previous century, America has moved its industrial base abroad. We don’t have the productive capability to make the issues individuals count on. I’ve talked to a number of suppliers, and so they say there are solely a few locations on this planet — most of them in China — with factories able to making these merchandise,” she stated.
“Even in the event you wished to make toys within the US, you’d nonetheless have to purchase the manufacturing tools from Chinese language corporations, and there could be tariffs to pay on that, too. If we wished to convey manufacturing again to the US, we should have invested within the requisite infrastructure earlier than elevating tariffs,” she stated.
Starting on Feb. 1, 2025, Trump signed greater than 35 govt orders on tariffs — a quantity that solely goes up in the event you embody the official proclamations that publicize the president’s political intentions to the world.
“At one level, tariffs on China exceeded 100%. They modified relying on the date container ships arrived, and generally they shifted weekly,” Adelsheim-Marshal instructed the Hankyoreh over the cellphone.
Some corporations lowered costs when tariffs dropped, however others maintained excessive costs in anticipation that tariffs would rise once more. The responses diverse broadly amongst over 500 buying and selling corporations.
“Our essential technique final summer time was to order as a lot as doable to safe as a lot stock as doable earlier than tariffs went into impact,” Adelsheim-Marshal stated.
Abby Adelsheim-Marshall, who runs the toy retailer Mischief in St. Paul, Minnesota, along with her dad and mom. (courtesy of Adelsheim-Marshall)
Trump pursued a hard-line commerce coverage, successively imposing excessive reciprocal tariffs and item-specific tariffs on almost all US buying and selling companions internationally. Final yr, the general common efficient tariff fee within the US exceeded 18%, the best since 1934.
Adelsheim-Marshall joined forces with 9 different companies, together with a board sport writer, a kids’s attire enterprise, a wonderful artwork collector, and a kitchenware enterprise, on April 24 to file a lawsuit in opposition to the Trump administration. The case argues that the implementation of reciprocal tariffs based mostly on the Worldwide Emergency Financial Powers Act (IEEPA) is illegal, echoing the rivalry outlined in a case at present being reviewed by the Supreme Courtroom.
“Our legal professional knowledgeable us that the Supreme Courtroom determination can be out in January. I can solely hope that the court docket decides that nobody is above the regulation,” the toy vendor stated.
Trump’s tariff struggle has had knock-on results for exports as effectively, with China countering aggressive tariffs with its personal retaliatory tariffs and by halting imports of US soybeans, the US’ high agricultural export.
The US had exported a median of 29 million tons of soybeans to China annually, however the quantity dropped drastically to zero by October 2025. The export quantity, equal to roughly 20 instances South Korea’s annual soybean consumption for meals, feed and processing mixed, vanished straight away.
Grant Kimberley, a soybean farmer in Hampton, Iowa, who serves because the Iowa Soybean Affiliation’s senior director of market improvement, visited each South Korea and Japan in September of final yr to discover new export markets.
“If we’re to make up for the losses from the Chinese language market, we have to break into markets everywhere in the world,” he instructed the Hankyoreh.
Grant Kimberley (middle) speaks to a South American delegation visiting his farm as a part of a US-South America commerce change program placed on by the Iowa Soybean Affiliation in November 2021. (courtesy of the Iowa Soybean Affiliation)
The leaders of the US and China got here to a serious commerce settlement in Busan in October of final yr. China agreed to import 12 million tons of American soybeans in November and December and to import 25 million tons yearly beginning the next yr. Nevertheless, even when either side persist with the settlement, that’s lower than the typical annual soybean exports to China earlier than commerce tensions rose.
“China has purchased an estimated 7 million to eight million tons from the market, however these shipments haven’t been loaded. It seems unlikely that they’ll make good on their promise to buy 12 million tons till February of this yr,” Kimberley stated.
China at present levies a ten% tariff on US soybeans, however has no tariff in place on Brazilian soybeans. The hope of many US farmers this yr is for China to drop its tariff on American soybeans.
“This tariff is retribution in response to the fentanyl tariff imposed by the US. If transactions in fentanyl precursor chemical compounds are efficiently deterred, then I feel tariffs from either side could be eradicated,” Kimberley stated.
“Agricultural commerce is mutually useful, so I hope we will cooperate,” he added.
Nationwide Guard troops in cities, kidnappings at workplaces, and resistance
On June 6, it lastly occurred to Citlali’s household. After migrating from a commune of descendants of the Zapotec tribe in Oaxaca, Mexico, 14 family members have been apprehended and kidnapped whereas working at a clothes warehouse in Los Angeles, California, by ICE brokers. They have been all handcuffed and shuttled right into a van.
This was a part of ICE’s first large-scale operation to implement immigration legal guidelines in sanctuary cities, which restrict cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Many noticed it because the opening salvo of a struggle on sanctuary cities and immigrants.
Anti-ICE protesters swarmed the town. Then, Trump despatched the Nationwide Guard into Los Angeles, in what would turn out to be the primary of many related deployments throughout the US.
It was troublesome to inform who had been taken and the place they’d been taken. Whereas she lastly discovered the ability the place her family have been being detained, legal professional visitations have been not possible.
“Furthermore, at first they lied that my household wasn’t there, then they later stated they have been there,” Citlali instructed the Hankyoreh. “I couldn’t even name my household to speak to them throughout the facility.”
That’s when the extraordinary battle to seek out her household started. One relative signed a doc, believing it was associated to COVID-19 testing, however was deported 36 hours later earlier than anybody may do something. Along with different activists, Citlali fashioned the group Lucha Zapoteca.
The one place to show to was the courts. The Trump administration has rejected requests for bond hearings, requiring plaintiffs to invoke habeas corpus, however the process is sophisticated and expensive. It is a excessive barrier for migrants who’re both poor or can’t converse English.
“The decide decided the unconstitutionality of the detainment, permitting us a bond listening to that not solely launched my family but additionally allowed different individuals in the identical scenario to obtain bond hearings with out the extra procedural burden of habeas corpus. It was a serious victory,” Citlali stated.
Her family at the moment are making ready for his or her trial. Happily, she has raised over US$170,000 via crowdfunding.
The group Lucha Zapoteca holds a press convention following the kidnapping of quite a few Zapoteca staff at a clothes warehouse in Los Angeles, California, on June 6, 2025. (courtesy of Lucha Zapotecha)
“ICE continues to be raiding workplaces. Folks working exhausting to make a residing every day are being kidnapped at their locations of labor,” Citlali stated. “Whereas the TV solely exhibits violence and desperation, we will resist if we stick collectively. The truth that we have been capable of do one thing gave me hope.”
The Trump administration deported over 622,000 individuals final yr. Over 1.9 million have voluntarily left the nation. Limits on birthright citizenship, restrictions on refugee and asylum claims, and better charges for H-1B visas have narrowed the window for authorized immigration.
FEMA workers vs. DOGE
“If there’s a fireplace, you need to do the whole lot doable to place it out. Even contractors who haven’t any protections have been signing it, so I couldn’t simply stand by. No less than if I get fired, I get a pension,” stated James Stroud, who’s at present in his fourth month of indefinite administrative depart from the Federal Emergency Administration Company, higher often known as FEMA.
On Aug. 25, the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, 192 FEMA workers issued a press release to “sound the alarm” concerning the state of management over the company. Stroud was one of many workers who signed the assertion utilizing his actual title. He was placed on depart 36 hours after the assertion got here out.
Underneath the management of billionaire businessman Elon Musk, the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) took a chainsaw to federal businesses, all however dissolving USAID and the Division of Training.
FEMA additionally couldn’t evade the categorization of a “large and inefficient bureaucratic group” requiring cuts. It has since misplaced 33% of its payroll.
The declaration issued by FEMA workers was a plea stating that they couldn’t merely stand by and witness the collapse of FEMA administration.
“The appearing chief didn’t know something about FEMA operations. Over 100 individuals died through the Texas floods again in August, however he couldn’t be reached. Because of this, the rescue staff was deployed 72 hours late,” Stroud instructed the Hankyoreh over the cellphone.
James Stroud, a statistician at FEMA who was positioned on administrative depart after signing on to the “Katrina Declaration” in August 2025. (courtesy of Stroud)
Citing the necessity for strict fiscal administration, the Trump administration has required all spending requests above US$100,000 to be accredited by US Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem. Stroud and his coworkers declare that Noem has rejected their requests for arbitrary causes.
“The funds we wanted for the rescue operation in Texas have been delayed 72 hours due to the $100,000 greenback rule,” a FEMA worker who spoke on the situation of anonymity instructed the Hankyoreh. “Reform is critical, however that is an general dismantling of the group, and folks will die in consequence.”
It’s troublesome to seek out any particular purpose for dismantling FEMA.
“They are saying that state governments, not the federal one, ought to attend to native disasters, however their actions are contradictory. In addition they nixed all federal funding to bolster state capability for catastrophe administration,” Stroud stated.
The FEMA employee who requested anonymity stated that FEMA was being focused as a result of it runs one thing referred to as the “Catastrophe Aid Fund.”
“I feel they need to privatize the fund and let corporations have management over it,” they stated.
Even in such a scenario, Stroud stated that his coworkers who’re combating for his or her jobs give him hope.
“Even amid stress from the manager department, my colleagues proceed to go to work each morning to assist individuals. Once I see them, I’m impressed,” he added.
“Individuals who had been working on the name middle for less than a yr signed the assertion. I’m so happy with them, and their sense of obligation provides me hope,” stated the FEMA employee who requested anonymity.
By Kim Gained-chul, Washington correspondent
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